Families Want Investigations Into Police Deaths

In this image from video the parents of Michael Brown, Lesley McSpadden and Michael Brown, Sr., speak at a news conference with civil rights leaders at the National Press Club Thursday, Sept. 25, 2014 in Washington. Brown’s parents were joined by Eric Garner’s mother in calling for full federal investigations into the death of their sons, two unarmed black men who died in police encounters. (AP Photo/AP Video)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The parents of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, two black men who died in encounters with white police officers, joined with civil rights leaders on Thursday to call for a full federal investigation and charges against those involved in their deaths.

“I’m here to make sure that this doesn’t happen to anyone else’s family,” said Brown’s father, Michael Brown Sr., who stood with leaders from the National Urban League, the National Action Network, the Black Women’s Roundtable and the NAACP at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington.

News of Attorney General Eric Holder’s upcoming resignation became public as they spoke, and some of the leaders were uncertain how that development might affect the prospects for a federal investigation.

“There’s a lot for us to calculate,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who expressed hope that Holder would announce full federal investigations into the deaths before he leaves office.

The civil rights organizations called on the Justice Department to intervene in the criminal investigations of the police officers responsible for Brown’s and Garner’s deaths. The younger Brown, 18, was shot and killed by a police officer last month in Ferguson, Missouri. Garner, 43, died July 17 following a confrontation with police on Staten Island, New York, who were attempting to question him about selling untaxed, loose cigarettes.

The activists noted the case of a South Carolina state trooper, Sean Groubert, who shot an unarmed man, Levar Jones, during a traffic stop on Sept. 4. Groubert has since been fired and arrested, a development the activists counted as a success but said it cannot be an aberration.

Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, said there were many other black men who have suffered unjustly at the hands of police officers whose cases are not as widely known as Brown’s and Garner’s.